@Nospecialcharactersplease
I left home at 16. I earned £3.25 a hour as a waitress working around my college hours. Paid rent, bills, food, bus fares. There was NO safety net, none. No parents to tap up for ‘whoopsie’ cash. No loans or overdrafts as I was too young. No universal credit to feather my nest. Just the tiny bit of money each Friday that I earned through my own graft. I budgeted just fine, because when the stakes are that high budgeting is actually really bloody easy.
Similar here. Except it must have been further back because my weekly pay was a whopping £32 per week (the NIC threshold at that time), so less than a pound per hour (1983).
At first I lived at home and gave half my wage to my Mum for board and lodgings, but I had to find money for bus fares, lunches, clothes, going out, records, etc. Each Friday, I had £16 in my pocket to last me until the following Friday. Every penny counted! If I went out socialising, I knew I'd have no money for a record or clothes that weekend, and before I'd go out, I'd put aside the cash for bus fares and lunches for the week, so I knew what I had to spend and I had to ration what kinds of drinks I'd buy!
I was also doing part time studying for professional qualifications which I had to pay for myself (as was the norm in those days). That was always the killer, trying to save to buy study books and exam fees, but I managed to borrow most books from the library (I think you could order them in for a small charge). There were no student loans etc back then! I also had to factor in the train fares for travelling to the exam hall in a nearby city.
When you don't have someone bailing you out, you very quickly learn the true value of money and how to budget! It's not cruelty how some previous posters seem to think, it's a lesson in real life. I'll always be there to support our son, but he's standing on his own two feet - he started his first job after graduation a few weeks ago, different city, 2/3 hours away, but he's coping remarkably well, not needed any help so far (other than facetime calls), managing his money very well, even telling us how much he saved in Tesco at the weekend by using his newly applied for Tesco Clubcard and bragging at how many Nectar points he's build up by buying most things for his flat from Argos!! He's done his budget, and even a cash flow forecast, showing all his flat bills going out, i.e. rent, rates, power, insurance, road tax, TV, etc., and he even downloaded a free payroll program to see what his monthly wages will be for the first few months after deductions for tax, nic, pension, etc., so he knows what's coming in, and what's going out, so the difference is his "spending" money for food, clothes, going out, petrol, etc - it's hard as his rent is soooo high (half his wage), but it's doable and he's keeping on top of it all. Not bad really, but then again, we've talked to him throughout his teenage years about money management, planning, etc., so it's really what we expected, and he sailed through Uni without regular handouts from us, just his student loan and a part time job!